Abdias do Nascimento (b. March 14, 1914, in Franca, Sao Paulo state) is a prominent Afro-Brazilian scholar, artist, and politician.
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Abdias attended public school as a child and joined the military in 1930, but was discharged for disorderly conduct a few years later. He received a B. A. in Economics from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 1938, and graduate degrees from the Higher Institute of Brazilian Studies (1957) and the Oceanography Institute (1961) . Nascimento travelled South America with a group of poets calling themselves the "Santa Irmandad Orquidea", or the "Holy Brotherhood of the Orchid" and developed an interest for the dramatic arts. Returning to Rio de Janeiro, he founded the Black Experimental Theater in 1944. He performed in Orfeu da Conceiçao, a play by Vinicius de Moraes which was later adapted into the motion picture Black Orpheus. He became a leader in Brazil's black movement, and was forced into exile by the military regime in 1968.
From 1968-1981 Nascimento was very active in international Pan African Movement and elected Vice-President and Coordinator of the Third Congress of Black Culture in the Americas. For the next decade Nascimento held positions as a Visiting Professor at several universities in the United States including Yale University’s School of Drama (1969-1971), and University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, where he founded the chair in African Cultures in the New World, Puerto Rican Studies Program in 1971. He currently holds the position of Professor Emeritus at SUNY-Buffalo.
Nascimento returned to Brazil in 1983 was elected to the federal Chamber of Deputies. There his focus was supporting legislation to address racial problems. In 1994 he was elected to the Senete and served until 1999. In 2004 he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Peace.
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